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By implementing a Lean process change that it calls TAPP (Team Assessment Pull Process), the ED leadership in the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta system has realized a 25-minute reduction in median overall turnaround time, from 192 minutes to 167 minutes, excluding its fast track.
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A patient's chart is unavailable. Verbal orders are not yet written in the patient's chart. The identification bracelet is not yet on your patient. These are three reasons that an ED nurse may fail to comply with one of The Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs): the requirement for use of at least two patient identifiers.
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When Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center redesigned its case management function, merging the social work, utilization review, and clinical guidelines departments, the hospital cross-trained staff in all three departments to handle case management functions.
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As hospitals experience an increasing number of audits for medical necessity of admission, it's more important than ever to make sure that patients are in the appropriate status and that the medical record contains the documentation to support the status, says Deborah Hale, CCS, president and CEO of Administrative Consultant Services LLC, a health care consulting firm based in Shawnee, OK.
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A Six Sigma project to improve documentation of patient status has resulted in increased satisfaction, increased productivity, and decreased denials for Medicare reimbursement for Virtua Health, a four-hospital health system in southern New Jersey.
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At Summa Health System, hospital case managers, called patient care coordinators, often are the first people to alert the palliative care team when a patient could benefit from a consultation and the first people the team contacts to find out what's going on with a particular patient.
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At Sharp Community Medical Group, case managers work in a variety of settings to make sure that patients are getting the care they need in a timely manner and to ensure continuity of care as patients move through the continuum.
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Suppose needlesticks at one of your health care facilities rose this year compared to last year. That doesn't sound so good. Clearly things are not going in the right direction. But you need more information to understand what's happening. You need a benchmark for your needlesticks.
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Wellpoint is testing a program that allows patients the option of going to India for elective surgery, according to The New York Times.
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Face-to-face and telephone follow-up sessions appear to be more effective in the maintenance of weight loss for women from rural communities compared with weight loss education alone, according to a report in the Nov. 24 Archives of Internal Medicine.
